Vaccination for school students from 1 Nov
Govt hopes to inoculate 40,000 children every day
School students aged 12-17 years will be inoculated with coronavirus vaccines from 1 November. At the beginning, students will get vaccines at 12 centres in Dhaka.
Health Minister Zahid Maleque yesterday told reporters at the Secretariat that preparations for vaccinating students were nearing completion. A list of students from the education ministry has been sent to the ICT ministry for registration.
"The ICT ministry has registered the names of students with the Surokkha application. Now the rest of the registration will be done by the schools," said Zahid Maleque.
Keep updated, follow The Business Standard's Google news channel
"Considering our present situation, we will be able to administer 40,000 doses every day," said the health minister.
Meanwhile, the Directorate General of Health Services (DGHS) yesterday said the special vaccination campaign launched on Thursday to administer the second dose to 78 lakh people may be extended up to Saturday, if needed.
Earlier on 14 October, 120 students at four schools in Manikganj were given the first dose of the Pfizer vaccine on a trial basis.
Zahid Maleque said 21 centres have already been fixed to vaccinate students. Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina has given directives for increasing the number of vaccination centres and initiative has been taken to gradually create air-conditioning facility in places where it is not available.
Gradually, the number of vaccination centres will be increased in all districts of the country, the minister said.
"School students will be jabbed with Pfizer vaccines which require air-conditioning. Therefore, vaccinating school students will start in all districts of the country after creating the required air conditioning facility gradually," he explained.
He said so far, Bangladesh has received more than 70 lakh doses of Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine under Covax. Another 35 lakh doses of Pfizer vaccine will arrive in the country in November.
Informing that there is no vaccine crisis in the country at present, Zahid Maleque said, "Another 55 lakh doses of Sinopharm vaccine arrived on 27 October. We now have about 2 crore doses of vaccine in stock. Hopefully, more consignments of vaccine will continue to come in the future. It will be possible to meet 50% of the government's vaccination target by December."
After a cabinet meeting at the Secretariat on Thursday, Cabinet Secretary Khandaker Anwarul Islam told reporters that the number of students in Dhaka is 3,44,000. Of them, vaccine registration of 3 lakh students has been completed.
Vaccination campaign till Saturday if target is not met
Those who received the first dose of the coronavirus vaccine on 28 September on the occasion of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina's birthday got the second dose on Thursday. There was a widespread response among the people to get the second dose of vaccine like the first dose. The campaign will be halted today as Friday is a public holiday, and if necessary, the vaccination campaign will resume Saturday to meet the target.
The vaccination campaign started at designated centres in all the union, upazila, district and city corporation areas across the country at 9am on Thursday.
According to the DGHS, the first dose was given to more than 78.11 lakh people on 28 and 29 September. The second dose was given on Thursday at the same centre from which the first dose was given.
Coronavirus vaccine was also given in 129 wards of two city corporations of the capital, setting up temporary vaccination centres in each ward.
Lieutenant Colonel Golam Mostafa Sarwar, deputy chief health officer of Dhaka North City Corporation told The Business Standard, "Around 54,000 people received the first dose in 54 centres of Dhaka North City Corporation. If everyone does not get the vaccine as per the target on Thursday, the second dose will be given on Saturday as well."
Abu Naser, public relations officer of Dhaka South City Corporation, said a number of 28,702 persons will get the second dose in 75 centres. Those who would not take the second dose on Thursday will be able to receive it anytime next week at 5 Urban Primary Health Care Centre, or Mahanagar General Hospital and Shishu Hospital under the city corporation.
The health minister said that people of the country will be given about 80 lakh vaccines as the second dose on Thursday and Saturday. In addition to the common people, immunisation activities for school students will continue as usual.
According to the DGHS, 5.73 crore people have registered for the vaccine as of Wednesday. Of them, 41,268,810 received one dose and 21,332,289 received two doses. If 78 lakh people get the second dose under the campaign, the number of people getting two doses of vaccine will be three crore which is 17% of the total population.
6 more die of Covid in a day
Bangladesh reported six more deaths from Covid-19 in the last 24 hours till 8am Thursday.
Besides, 294 more people tested positive for the virus during the same period.
The positivity rate stands at 1.50% as the health officials tested 19,535 samples across the country.
With the latest additions, the death toll reached 27,847 and the case tally increased to 15,68,857 in the country.
